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OpenMarket: January 2013

Openmarket.org
It’s almost too beautiful to believe.
In this era of ever-expanding government power, of rising and risible rapacity in the federal Leviathan, can it really be the case that, on the state level, at least, significant victories for liberty are not only possible, but achieved and strengthened?
So it would seem, as the powerful government/union two-headed beast continues to reel from ferocious assault by bold governors in Michigan, ...

It’s almost too beautiful to believe.
In this era of ever-expanding government power, of rising and risible rapacity in the federal Leviathan, can it really be the case that, on the state level, at least, significant victories for liberty are not only possible, but achieved and strengthened?
So it would seem, as the powerful government/union two-headed beast continues to reel from ferocious assault by bold governors in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and elsewhere.
This last is perhaps most significant. Wisconsin, after...

The extent and huge costs of the damage from Hurricane Sandy to New Jersey should make rebuilding the worst affected areas a priority for Garden State lawmakers. That would include keeping down costs. Yet the Democrat-controlled New Jersey State Senate is trying to do the exact opposite. Last week it passed, along a 23-13 party-live vote, a bill (S2425) that expands the use of project labor agreements (PLAs) in state construction projects.
Astoundingly, the Senate did not consider any other legislation. “So in these days post-Sandy, we’ve been called back to debate only one bill,”...

President Obama claimed Obamacare would cut healthcare costs, but it actually increased them in many ways, some of which are chronicled here. Here are yet more Obamacare fees and cost increases. Another example is given by Mickey Kaus, a staunch supporter of universal health care (he once thanked Obama and Nancy Pelosi for passage of Obamacare), who points out that Obamacare's $19 billion in taxpayer subsidies for electronic recordkeeping appear to have backfired and...

A great deal of news coverage today has been given to the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) decision to remove backscatter X-ray strip-search machines from U.S. airports and to replace them with millimeter wave full-body scanners, with manyoutlets implying that this is somehow a major win for travelers and those concerned about effective air security and privacy rights. This analysis, however, ignores the bigger underlying issues, as well as recent TSA policy.
This shuffle actually began in October of last year, when the TSA announced it would begin replacing...

Environmental activists launched a campaign several years ago to demonize and promote bans on bottled water, suggesting that people find more "energy efficient" and "environmentally sound" alternatives, including reusable plastic or metal water bottles. Some even recommended the dangerously breakable reusable glass bottle! CEI...

The president's remarks about gun control yesterday promoted fallacies about the Constitution and the scope of federal regulatory power under it. Under the Constitution, the federal government -- unlike state governments -- has only certain enumerated powers, like the powers to regulate commerce among the states or with Indian Tribes or foreign nations. It cannot regulate everything under the sun, even if doing so seems like a good idea, or it promotes public safety. Thus, the Supreme Court invalidated the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act in United States v. Lopez (1995), because it exceeded Congress's power under the Commerce...